


What Heroes Do

by snowshus



Category: Champions (Comics), Spider-Man (Comicverse)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-16
Updated: 2017-12-16
Packaged: 2019-02-15 17:54:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13036371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowshus/pseuds/snowshus
Summary: We were destined to be friends





	What Heroes Do

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nope](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nope/gifts).



> Thank you to my betas who made this mess readable you are the real heroes.

This is Kamala’s fifth encounter with Spider-Boy, which she thinks entitles her to call him her nemesis. Spider-Boy is not actually his name, or alias, as it were. However, he’s never given her anything else to call him so she has to make do. Every time she’s seen him he’s had a bright red and blue Spider-Man backpack with him. He is otherwise an enigma, covered head to toe in black.She doesn’t even know what his face looks like. 

Now, Kamala hasn’t really spent a lot of time with Spider-Man, but she’s pretty sure he would not approve of this dude’s life choices. She tried to tell him that the first time they met, when he was attempting to rob a Starktech lab. To his credit he did actually pause, but he still stole some sort of gizmo thing. Tony had gone ballistic when he found out. He’d demanded to know who had authorized the research, ranting about how that wasn’t the sort of shit the company did anymore and he was going to fire whoever was responsible. He’d spent the next week trying to track the stolen tech down before Spider-Boy contacted him and ransomed it for a hefty sum of money. 

This is a step down from that encounter. This is a toy store. A fancy toy store Kamala will grant him, but not exactly a tech empire. Spider-Boy appears to be stealing a toy. Not a lot of toys, or like a video game console, nothing extraordinarily expensive or flashy or new. He was in the back room sorting through the discontinued LEGO collection when she found him. He went invisible when he saw her, fading into the background. It’s a pretty cool trick, but super annoying when she’s trying to arrest him -- well, detain him until the actual police come and arrest him.

She catches a glimpse of a box shifting at the edge of her vision and shoots her hand out, embiggening it just it crashes into the wall next to a display of Barbie dolls. “Got ya!”

Spider-Boy fades back into visibility, dressed in his usual black ensemble and his Spider-Man backpack.

“Come on Ms. M, you know better then this,” Spider-Boy says with a warm lift to his voice as he wiggles around. Kamala yanks her hand back when she feels the brush of his fingers coming up to touch her. 

Not fast enough. 

She feels the light shock and braces herself for the follow-up. The electric pulse courses through her, leaving her nerve endings tingling. If the name wasn’t already taken, she would have called him The Shocker for that move. It wasn’t a bad dose this time, not even enough to knock her off her feet, but enough to let Spider-Boy fade out again. She stays very still, listens for any creak in the floorboards, eyes scanning the walls for a misplaced shadow. 

There’s a tap on her shoulder and she spins around, leading with a fist, but connects to nothing. Behind her the emergency exit door slams.

“MOTHER---” Kamala bites off a curse, elongating her stride as she rushes to catch up to him.

His footsteps ring on the metal stairs above her and she grows herself until she sees him. She grabs the railing, pulls herself up onto the landing, and shrinks back down enough to fit but still big enough to effectively block Spider-Boy’s exit. 

Spider-Boy doesn’t even slow down, he rounds the corner of the landing, plants a foot on the wall and launches himself off the stairs.

Kamala has this moment of terror that he’s going to fall, they’re high enough that serious injury and possibly death would not be unreasonable. He’s too low to catch on the railing and Kamala already has her arm stretching out as fast as she can to catch him before he falls too far for her to reach. His hand hits the flat side of the stairs and sticks. He hangs there for a second-his legs swinging in the empty space-before he draws them up and starts leaping up the side of the stairs, gripping the flat metal with the tips of his fingers.

When he reaches the roof door he turns back to Kamala and fires off a quick salute. “Until next time Ms. M.”

\--

Miles blends into the brick outside of Ganke’s window. He tries not to come around too much. It’s dangerous. He’s dangerous, the people who killed his parents and are looking for him are dangerous, Uncle Aaron is dangerous. Everything is just dangerous now. He can’t quite stay totally away though. He leaves his prize on the fire escape and waits, making sure no one else steals it until Ganke climbs through the window and picks up the box, carefully gift wrapped with bright wrapping paper proudly proclaiming HAPPY BIRTHDAY in an unending rainbow. 

Ganke opens it, careful not to rip the paper. He sits down heavily on the metal of the fire escape hugging the Star Wars Special Edition Slave I Lego Set to his chest. 

“Miles? Are you still here?”

Miles doesn’t answer, bites his tongue and waits.

“Come on man, I just want to see you. Please Miles, I miss you.”

Miles stays hidden until Ganke gives up and goes back inside. 

\--

The tech Uncle Aaron wants is in an offshoot, off-the-books Parker Industries lab tucked away in a warehouse in the Bronx. He likes these jobs. Off-the-books always means it’s something the company shouldn’t have been doing in the first place so he doesn’t feel bad stealing it. The bomb he’d stolen from Stark Industries is still his favorite heist. He’d exposed some Hydra stealth agent trying to take over Stark Industries, stopped a dangerous weapon from getting made, got hella paid, and - best of all - met Ms. Marvel. She’s kind of the coolest, and while Miles isn’t sure he really wants this supervillain life he’s fallen into, he’s pretty thrilled to have a superhero as amazing as Ms. M as his archenemy. 

This lab looks like it hasn’t been touched in a long time. Probably since Osborn came on as co-CEO or whatever his title is. Dust covers everything and plooms into the air with every step. Miles glides his feet on the floor, marring the footprints so no cops can get a read on his shoe size. The tech is in a sealed in a small black box locked in a glass cupboard. Jimmying the lock is childsplay, Uncle Aaron had him popping these simple things open by the end of his first day. The box is lighter than he expected and smooth. There’s a tiny hole on one end and on the other side a blue square that emits a soft hum when Miles presses it. There’s a faint click from inside. Miles lets go quickly and the box hits the lip of the cabinet and tumble onto the table next to it landing with a soft thud on a red folder, still open to a picture of the box. 

They say curiosity killed the cat, but Miles can’t stop himself. He picks up the open page. It’s pretty technical, so Miles flips back to the first page. He doesn’t mean to get so involved, but before he knows it he has the whole file spread out on the floor trying to piece together what exactly he’s stealing. Uncle Aaron had been sort of vague, just saying he needed it so they could go after the big guys, people like SHIELD who hide behind their government positions to justify the terrible things they do. People too well protected for even Miles and his powers to touch.

The more he reads the more uneasy he feels. This isn’t just some kind of super hacking tech or extra-super-sneaking tech, this is like real unethical stuff. This is nasty, evil stuff, worse than the Stark bomb. Whatever Uncle Aaron was planning on doing with this, it can’t be good. Even if it serves a greater good, there are lines.

Miles puts the box back in the cabinet, locking it again. He grabs the folder and stuffs it in his backpack, and slips out as quickly as he’d slipped in, making sure to trip the alarm on the warehouse next door. 

\--

Miles gets his story straight before going home. Uncle Aaron will be mad that he failed, but as long as he isn’t suspicious that’s fine. 

Aaron is waiting for him when he gets back to their apartment, arms crossed. So he knows Miles failed, at least he doesn’t have to break the bad news.

“Want to tell me what happened out there?” Aaron asks.

“I screwed up.”

“I’ll say you did. You’re lucky you only set off the neighboring building, if you’d set off ours we might never get another chance.”

“I know.”

“You have to be more careful Miles,” Aaron sighs. “If you get caught everything we’ve been working for is over.”

“I know, I’m sorry.” Miles says again, brushing past Aaron to get to his room. 

“5 AM, on the roof.”

“Come on Uncle Aaron, I have school tomorrow.”

“That’s why we’re starting at 5. You think college is going to happen if you get caught.”

“Like you care,” Miles snaps, slamming the door to his room. He immediately regrets it. He was supposed to be cool, so Aaron wouldn’t think he was lying. Instead he blew up at him.

Miles shoves his Spider-Man bag under the bed. He’ll have to figure out what to do with the folder later, but for now he needs it somewhere Aaron won’t think to look. His hands feel shaky, but he’s gotten away with it. Aaron thinks he screwed up. He doesn’t suspect anything and as long as Miles plays it cool, acts like nothing’s changed, he won’t know. 

Miles curls up in his bed and pulls out his worn out dog-eared copy of Lord of The Rings. He opens it up at random and starts reading. 

He isn’t sure exactly how much time has passed when there’s a tap on his door and Aaron pushes it open. 

“Can I come in.”

Miles shrugs, which Aaron takes as a yes, coming to sit down on the bed.

“Lord of the Rings, huh?” he says, picking up Miles’ discarded book. “This was your dad’s favorite book growing up.”

“I know. He used to read it me.”

“No wonder you turned out so smart.”

Miles looks down at his hands.

“Look, I know I’m not doing this right. This isn’t the life your dad wanted for you.” Aaron thumbs through the book off-handedly. “I never really figured out how to live that kind of life, this is the best I got. I don’t know how to get you into a good school or even which schools are the good ones. This is what I know, these are the only skills I’ve got to help you to survive in life.”

“I know.”

Aaron pulls Miles in close, tucking Miles’ head against his shoulder. “I’m trying.”

“I know.” Miles says again, leaning into the embrace, thinking of the folder and the box. “Me too.”

\--

Miles stuffs the folder into his school backpack; he has to figure out what to do with it. He only has a few days of letting the area cool down before Uncle Aaron will send him back to retrieve the box. He should take it to one of the heroes, but he doesn’t know which ones he can trust. Spider-man is right out, he’s too close to Parker, it’s a conflict of interests at best and he’s sold out or mind-controlled at worst. Stark is the only one Miles has proof would do the right thing with the information Miles has, but he’s in a coma in some secret SHIELD base. Miles doesn’t know anyone else.. He wouldn’t know how to find them or how to explain how he got this stuff without them finding out who he is. 

The answer comes to him in homeroom. Jesse, who sits in front of him most days, leans back in his seat and says, “Dude, have you seen Ms. Marvel’s new thing?”

Miles shakes his head and Jesse holds out his phone which is playing a tiny video of Ms. Marvel backed by a group of other kids in costume. "What happened here today was sickening. And stuff as bad -- worse -- happens every day in this world. The strong abuse the weak -- who have to worry more all the time about who they can trust and who they can’t. You want that to change? Us too. We’re in a war for a better tomorrow. Join us. Help us to not take the easy road, and I promise we’ll fight every fight they can throw at us. Help us win the hard way -- the right way -- not with hate, not with retribution, but with wisdom and hope. Help us become champions.” 

And it’s so clear, of course the person he can take this to -- he hero he can trust -- is Ms. M.

\--

Kamala is sitting on the roof of the Circle Q watching Sam do lazy loops in the air as the sun dips below the horizon, casting a soft orange glow over the Hudson. 

“We did good today.”

Sam comes over to hover in front of her. “Yeah, it was nice actually helping real people again, you know.”

Kamala leans back, taking in the sky as the first stars come out. “Thanks for doing this with me.”

“You know I’ll follow you anywhere, fearless leader,” Sam says, settling down next to Kamala. 

“I should have trusted your judgement in the first place,” Kamala says, leaning against him. “You were right, the Avengers weren’t working out. This is the sort of stuff I became a hero to do. Helping people, not dragging the world into our personal issues.”

“I’m sorry, did you just say I was right?” Sam jokes. “Hold on let me get this on video. I’m gonna need a record of this.”

“Shut up, I’m trying to be serious.” Kamala bumps his shoulder.

“Me too! I’m gonna whip this out every time we argue.”

Below them they hear sirens..

“Want to go help some more people?” Sam asks, floating out into the street.

Kamala grins and leaps off the roof, revelling in the swooping feel of falling before Sam catches her and they’re off.

The sirens turn out to be a bust. The bank is empty when they get there, whoever set off the alarm long gone and apparently too spooked to steal anything. They’re about to turn back when Kamala sees the odd distortion, the shadows that doesn’t quite line up on the roof across from the bank. 

“Drop me on that roof,” she points.

She throws out her hand as she hits the roof. Spider-Boy jumps out of the way, fading back into the view like he does whenever he has to move quickly. Kamala isn’t sure if it’s that he forgets to hold it when he has to run or if it just doesn’t work when he’s in motion. Once he’s visible, Nova swoops in to grab him, but he only gets a few feet into the air before Spider-Boy gets him with his shocking blast thing. 

Spider-Boy drops to the roof and rolls away, popping up with his hands in the air. “I don’t want to fight.”

“You should have thought of that before you tried to rob a bank,” Kamala argues, but she holds her place. 

“I wasn’t going to rob the bank. Come on Ms. M, you know that’s not my style. I just needed to get your attention.”

Kamala does have to admit that as far as she knows Spider-Boy has never tried anything as pedestrian as robbing a bank. He generally breaks into corporate labs and the toy store that one time. It’s almost always bad stuff the owners of the labs didn’t want anyone to know they were making. And LEGOs. Maybe she should investigate the LEGO company, possibly they’re evil. On the other hand, she’s pretty sure he’s robbed plenty of things she has no idea about.

“Okay, you’ve got it. What is this about?”

“I need your help,” He says, slipping his Spider-Man backpack off and rummaging around in it.

“You know Spider-Man is not a big fan of crime,” Sam says.

Spider-Boy looks up at him, then over at Kamala, then goes back to his rummaging.

“My--someone asked me to steal some stuff from this old Parker lab, right. The usual off the books, probably illegal research type stuff. Except he didn’t want to, like, ransom it this time, he was gonna use it to, like, hack into SHIELD and expose them. Which again, all for, because SHIELD is shady as shit and you know they didn’t really shut down that secret prison upstate. But this isn’t like some super-computer de-encrypter, it’s well...the person who made this was a bad dude okay, and no one should have this tech.” He pulls out a manila folder and holds it out to Kamala. 

She has to read through it a few times before it clicks. She looks up at Spider-Boy. “Is this--?”

He nods.

“Is this what?” Sam asks, peering over her shoulder.

“Mind control,” Spider-Boy announces. 

“And they actually made this? It’s a fully developed physical thing, not just plans,” Kamala clarifies.

Spider-Boy nods.

“Do you have it with you?”

Spider-Boy shakes his head. “It’s still in the lab, I couldn’t risk my-the person I was working with finding it.”

Kamala nods. “We’ll take this to Spider-Man. He’ll let Parker know and they’ll stop it.”

Kamala barely has time to react before Spider-Boy has grabbed the file from her and is holding it against his chest on the other side of the roof.

“No!” 

“Spidey’s a good dude, trust me.” Sam tells him.

Spider-Boy shakes his head. “Everything I have on this place says it was Parker’s private lab at some point before Osborn came on. We can’t trust them.”

“We’ll tell him to take it to Osborn instead,” Kamala reasons.

Spider-boy hugs the folder tighter. “No Osborns.”

“We have to trust someone,” Sam argues.

“No Osborns.” Spider-Boy repeats.

“Okay.” Kamala holds out her hands. “No one from Parker Industries. Who do you want us to take this to?”

Spider-Boy’s shoulder sag. “I don’t know.”

“Hey.” Sam glides over and puts a comforting hand on Spider-Boy’s arm. “You did the right thing coming to us with this, and we’re going to help you take care of it. We’ll figure it out.”

Spider-Boy nods. 

“So, if we can’t trust anyone with this we should destroy it,” Sam says, looking at back at Kamala for agreement.

It’s the sort of deceptively simple but perfect plan she’s come to expect from him. She and Spider-Boy are here trying to figure out how to expose this without bringing the force of a supervillain controlled Spider-Man down on them; meanwhile Sam is fixing the actual problem -- the existence of mind-control tech. 

“Yeah,” Kamala nods. “I mean, it won’t solve the problem of Parker making this stuff, but at least no one will be able to use it while we work on that problem.”

“We should probably destroy the whole lab!” Sam adds with a grin.

“I don’t know if that’s necessary…” Kamala hedges, looking at Spider-Boy. He’s the only one who's actually been there. If he says it’s filled floor to ceiling with unethically dangerous mind-control tech that must be destroyed she might have to agree, but if it’s just this one thing….

“Please,” Sam presses his hands together in prayer, “you never let me blow stuff up.”

“Remember that thing we were talking about just yesterday, justice without unjust force? Blowing things up is generally in the unjust force category.” Kamala reminds him.

“See this is why I need that video of you saying I was right. This would be a perfect time to use it.”

“I didn’t really look around, there might be stuff that it would be bad to blow-up, like a pocket sized nuclear reactor or a virus,” Spider-boy jumps in. “Sorry man.”.

Sam sighs. “Fine. No blowing up the evil lab.”

“Can you take us there tomorrow?” Kamala asks. “We need to destroy anything that might help someone recreate this, and I’m going to need supplies to do that.”

Spider-Boy nods. “I’ll meet you here. Same time?”

“Sounds good,” Kamala agrees.

“Hey, what’s your name?” Sam asks.

“Uh…” Spider-Boy freezes.

“Not like your real name, dude, your superhero name.”

“I’m not a superhero,” Spider-Boy replies quickly.

“You’re here helping us take down an evil mad scientist, you’re totally a superhero now. And you need a superhero name.”

“Um, I guess you can call me Shelob.”

Sam grins widely, “You like Lord of the Rings!”

“My dad read them to me,” Shelob says.

Sam’s smile dims just a little, the corner of his mouth twisting ever so lightly. “So did mine.”

\--

When Miles gets home Aaron is sitting on couch in his Prowler suit, playing idly with a small black box. 

Miles stops in the doorway. “Hey, is that…” he trails off, not sure what to say that won’t incriminate him.

“The tech you were supposed to get for us?” Aaron supplies. “Yeah, I figured you needed a break, thought I could handle this for you.”

“Oh, cool, thanks Uncle Aaron,” Miles says stepping further into the apartment.

“Man, that lab needed a real dusting, you know what I mean?”

Miles nods.

“It’s weird though, this baby wasn’t all that dusty, almost like someone had been handling it recently.”

“That is weird,” Miles agrees, gripping the straps of his backpack tighter.

“Someone who knew to scuff their footprints.”

“Maybe they just had a limp?” Miles offers.

Aaron stands up. Miles has grown a lot since he was thirteen but Aaron still has a good half a foot over him. “Why have you been lying to me, Miles?” 

Miles runs. 

He doesn’t think about where he’s going, he just books it away from Aaron as fast as he can. It’s not until he’s put several miles between himself and Aaron that he realizes where he’s headed. He’s almost home, the house he’d lived in with his mom and dad before the spiderbite and Oscorp’s goons had taken that away.

He makes a quick course adjustment. Places his uncle are likely to look for him are out, which includes his old house and Ganke’s place. Miles can’t go to anywhere Aaron knows about. He has to find Ms. Marvel, or her friend Nova. He has to find one the heroes. Aaron has the mind-control device, this changes everything. 

\--

Sam lingers in the city. Kamala has already gone home to call Viv and get her to make a computer virus that will destroy any computer files about the mind-control thing. Sam should be heading home too, but he doesn’t quite want to go yet and face the absence of his father and his failure to find him. So he lingers, floating above the city, half remembering, half-pushing away the sound of his father’s clear voice -- the way it used to be before the alcohol got bad --reading from the worn copy of Lord of the Rings. That’s when he spots a familiar Spider-Man backpack.

The kid wearing it has dark skin and hair cut close to his head, and he’s running like something’s chasing him. Sam drops down to fly next him.

“Shelob?”

The kid turns to look at him and without pausing jumps into him. The force pushes Sam back and he’s about to push the kid off when he hears him.

“Fly, fly, fly, fly, fly, fly.”

“Okay.” Sam grips Shelob’s waist and shoots up so they’re hovering over the harbor. “You okay?”

He feels the kid shake his head against his shoulder. “He found out. He has the device and he knows I was lying. I didn’t know what to do. He’s going to come after me, he’s going to be so angry.”

“It’s okay,” Sam promises. “We’re gonna grab Ms. Marvel and we’ll come up with a new plan. We won’t let anything happen to you.”

Sam flies them over to Jersey and sets down on the roof of the Circle Q. “Hold this,” he says, handing Shelob his helmet. He digs through his pockets for his cell phone, pulls up Kamala’s number and sends off a quick text.

SOS the usual place

He sits down to wait for Kamala to respond or show up. Shelob is still holding onto his helmet staring at it and him in slack-jawed astonishment. 

“What?”

“You--your face-you- I can see you.”

“Oh, yeah.” Sam shrugs. “It’s whatever.”

That just earns him another blank stare. 

“I mean, do you recognize me?”

“Well, no,” Shelob admits

“Exactly, there’s like a billion people in the world and it’s not like you know my name or where I live or anything.”

“But what if I did? You couldn’t know that I wouldn’t recognize you.”

“I guess, but we’re like friends now right, you’re gonna be a hero with us. I can trust you.”

Shelob frowns at that. “I never said anything about that.”

“You didn’t have to, I can tell. You’re a good guy. I know someone was making you do bad things, but you have us now and we’re going to stop him and you can be a hero with us.”

“I’m not a good guy.” Miles insists. “And I don’t just steal because my-- because someone is making me. I went to him. I’ve done bad things and I did them willingly.”

Sam takes his helmet back. “This was my dad’s. He was technically a traitor. Before I was born he went AWOL and abandoned his friends in the middle of a fight because my mom needed him. He was still a hero though. He saved the earth last year, but he was captured, and I’m not sure where they’re holding him.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m not telling you for pity. He’s alive. The Watcher told me, and I will find him. I just -- my dad did bad things too, and he was kind of a mess, but that doesn’t make him less of a hero. You may have stolen things, but you’re still a good person. You still care about not hurting people.”

“My parents were killed,” Shelob says, sitting down next to Sam. “When I got my powers people came looking for me, to study me I think, or just get rid of me. I’m not sure and I don’t really want to know. My uncle -- he’s the person who wanted me to steal the mind-control thing for him -- he’s not really a good person, but he cared about me and if anyone could hide me from the people after me, it was him.”

Sam starts to say “I’m sorry,” but Kamala is climbing over the edge of the roof. 

“What happened?” she asks, glancing at their uncovered faces.

“Shelob's been found out and our baddy has the device,” Sam explains.

“Well, that’s bad,” Kamala says, sitting down across from them. “Do you think you could steal it back?” 

“If it’s not on him, sure,” Shelob says, “but I’m not really a pickpocket.”

“Do you know where he might keep it if it’s not on him?”

Shelob hesitates then nods.

“Okay, so that’s plan A. Plan B, if he has it on him, is Nova and I punch him a lot and take it off him. Either way, afterwards we break into the lab and destroy anything else dangerous in there.”

Sam and Shelob both nod.

“Can you carry us both, Nova?”

Sam nods, he puts his helmet back and gets a good grip on their hands. 

\--

They touch down on the roof of a non-descript apartment building. Shelob fades out of sight and Sam loses track of him until he sees a window on the third floor ease open. Shelob reappears to gesture them in and Sam grips Kamala’s waist and floats them down to his level. She crawls through first and Sam follows. He finds himself in a bedroom, and after a second he realizes it must Shelob's. There are advanced chemistry textbooks and stacks of standard public school-type novels piled by the bed and clothes draped over the chair. 

“Wait here,” Shelob whispers before fading out again. The door opens and quietly clicks shut. Each second seems to stretch out into infinity as they wait for him to come back.

There’s a sudden crash and Sam doesn’t pause to think, he flies out, breaking through the door. In the living room Shelob is on the floor amid the ruins of a coffee table. There’s a man above him, his glove-covered hand holding down Shelob’s face and his knee pressing against his neck. Shelob is scrabbling at his arm, and there’s an unhealthy looking purple tinge to his fingertips. 

Sam slams into the guy with the full rocket force, sending them both through the wall. The man sneers at Sam and presses something against Sam’s head. He hears a soft hum and click-click-click that gets faster and faster and louder and louder until everything else fades away. His vision goes white. There’s a voice in his head echoing and and repeating like the clicks, soft and first but getting louder and faster kill them-kill them-kill them-kill them-kill them-killthem-killthem-kiilthem-killhem-killem-killem-killem-killem-kllm-kllm. 

Sensations are vague, there is a familiar warmth in his hands and a fire in his nerves and everything is white and the only thing he can hear is the click-click-clicking voice and then nothing.

When he regains consciousness his whole body feels like it’s on fire, his helmet is lying on the floor, and the man he was fighting is gone. 

“What happened?”

“He used the mind-control thing on you,” Kamala explains.

“I had to venom blast you,” Shelob says, his voice sort of scratchy and thin. With an apologetic nod he adds, “a lot.” Which explains the horrible pain.

“But I did manage to destroy the device.” Kamala grins, holding up a smashed up jumble of wires. 

“But my uncle got away.”

Sam blinks, trying to process everything then turns to Shelob. “What are you gonna do now?” 

Shelob shrugs. “I’ll figure it out.”

“You should come home with me,” Sam says, sitting up. “I live in Arizona, he’ll never find you there.”

“Is that--are you sure?” 

Sam nods. “At least for tonight. You need somewhere to sleep, right?”

“Thanks.” Shelob bites his lip, looking from Sam to Kamala. “Um, I’m Miles. That’s my name. Miles Morales.”

“Sam,” Sam says, holding out his hand for Miles to shake.

Kamala looks between them before pushing her mask up. “Kamala. It’s nice to properly meet you, Miles.”

“You too. Thanks for helping me.”

“Of course.” Kamala smiles. “You were my archnemesis, we were destined to be friends.”


End file.
